Rats, made her face blue again! Want to make sure that your pictures come out color-correct no matter how bizzare the lighting is? Check out our cheap (cents really) color-temperature disc!

When it comes to photography, color-temperature, along with focus, exposure and composition, is one of the most important aspects of getting a decent photograph. Making a significant-other a Lighter shade of purple does not do much for your reputation as a photographer.

Especially with digital, where color-temperature compensation is so much easier than with film, there’s really little reason to have more than a few of your photos come out with skewed colors.

This is extremely critical if your shooting JPEG and not RAW files, and in compromising scenarios such as dark, long-exposure shots with high ISO settings, or with lenses that have a greater amount of chromatic-abberation. This gives you very little, if any, post-processing correction latitude to adjust for incorrect colors.

Well fret no more! We have a way to make a filter that’s similar to those $80+ “exposure filters” but ours is pretty close to free.

We took an old 77mm filter (a Tiffen Haze filter to be exact), unscrewed the retaining ring to release the glass element, and inserted our homade assembly.

To unscrew the ring, I used a small jewlers type screwdriver to engage one of the slots in the front of the ring. If you have a filter spanner-wrench, specially made for this task, so much the better.

It took a sharp (but delicate) tap of a hammer on the screwdriver to break the ring free, but once there, it easily unscrews (you don’t want to break the filter element).

Then we took a 77mm diameter section out of the base of a white (not the unbleached brown filters) and also a 77mm diameter section of some small-domed bubble wrap.

This we sandwitched together using some clear “Fasson” brand double-stick adhesive tape (I got mine here).

I stuck the coffee-filter section to the old Haze filter glass (if you use another type of filter, you might not be able to use it as a base because it could affect your color-balance) using the Fasson adhesive, then I stuck the bubble-wrap to the coffee-filter side of the assembly.

I then placed this assembly into the vacant outer filter ring and secured it all using the inner retaining-ring of the filter. I tightened it all down using my small screwdriver placed into one of the slots, being careful not to slip and ruin my assembled temperature-disc.

Voila! Done. Now it was just a matter of placing (not screwing-in) my Temperature-disc in front of what ever lens I was using at the time (so far, 77mm is my biggest lens-filter size, so I was assured this would cover all my lenses with no light leaking past).

Then, on my Nikon D-200 for example, I set the white balance to “Pre” (for “Preset”) and pressed the “WB” button until “Pre” flashed on-and-off in my info-screen, then I took a “picture” through my Temperature-disc and checked my info screen to make sure it indicated “Good”, meaning the capture was successful in getting the color-temp info to the camera.

It takes longer to explain the proceedure than to do it. As I’d mentioned in my blog at the Petersen Museum (click here), I was able to quickly and accurately adjust the temp for each static display using the above technique. Check out your camera’s operators-manual to see how you adjust the color preset.

Now this doesn’t work as well if you have quickly changing color-temps and fast moving action or if your using flash, but for a large majority of your picture taking, this can be a big help in relieving your post-prcessing burden.

Questions?

Do I need to use an old filter-ring?

Absolutely no! We just used it because it made for a nice ridgid platform that was easy to carry around and didn’t get all smushed in your pocket.

Why the bubble-wrap?

The theory with the domed bubble-wrap is that it helps pick up a better variety of mixed color-temps by virtue of the different light hitting the domed (read “larger” surface which point in all directions. These aren’t lenses in the truest sense (or in any sense really), but they might help to gather more mixed colors. ‘Sides, it makes it look more like the expensive discs!

Are there better front-elements than the bubble-wrap?

Sure, maybe that prismatic plastic they use to cover flourescent-light fixtures might work. Not sure if you can cut it with scissors (easy was a requirement here), and it is pretty brittle. Not sure if it would add any color to your reading as well….dunno.

Can I just use a coffee-filter?

Sure, I’ve heard they work by themselves pretty well (like the tops of Pringles cans too), but not having tried them in any really varied lighting-environments. I’m not sure of their light-gathering capabilities. ‘Sides, they tend to get all crumpled up in your pocket and it looks kinda cheesy when you whip out what looks like an old-hankie to wipe the front of your lens.

That’s about it for this installment. If you have any other questions, just let me know in the comments section!

Enjoy and my the cheap-force be with you.

All photos taken with a Nikon D-200, Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF lens, Ikea Lamp, SanDisk compact flash card, Manfrotto tripod and geared head, modified Tiffen filter.